


Time I’ll Never Know

by trailingoff



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (canonical with April the reaper), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s09e06 Heaven Can't Wait, First Time, Gas-N-Sip Employee Castiel (Supernatural), Gender Issues, Human Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Season/Series 09, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:56:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27711685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trailingoff/pseuds/trailingoff
Summary: Over the years Dean had frequently tried to connect Cas with women, Nora being the latest example. Dean seemed oblivious to the fact that he was utterly indifferent to sexual orientation. Jimmy’s face was handsome, at least by current North American standards, and angels were not grotesque or repellent creatures—Cas presumed he could have attracted many sentient lifeforms. But he couldn’t imagine wanting anyone more than he wanted Dean.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 16
Kudos: 166
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	Time I’ll Never Know

**Author's Note:**

> From 2018 to 2019, pre-Good Omens, I read a mountain of SPN fanfic, and I wrote this one. I thought I’d never post it. So, why now? Frankly, my dears, I’m furious with the CW. This is my little way of saying fuck you to them.

Cas used to wonder how humans hadn’t burned their whole world. The temptation to set fires was so strong, and it was so easy, and there was so much fuel. But by the time he sat on that motel bed in Rexford, he had learned that sometimes you could only strike the match and hold it near to the fuel, an inch away, without lowering it, without moving, and remain perfectly still until it flared to a stub and flickered out.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed as Dean bandaged his wrist and palm. The touch of Dean’s fingers was painful, worse than boiling water from the Gas-n-Sip coffee machine. Cas kept his eyes lowered and his hand steady; he had endured worse without complaint. But why did it hurt so much?

Since becoming human he had longed for human touch, specifically Dean’s. He now understood why humans razed cities to the ground and threw themselves on funeral pyres. It made him think of a song Dean favoured, a chant of desire from the Impala’s tape-deck: ‘I’m burning, I’m burning, I’m burning for you.’ Cas had wanted, before, to touch Dean, many times, or for Dean to touch him, and he had wanted to shield and protect Dean, to please him, so many times, but not like this. It made Cas sick and sweaty and moist and furtive, like some desperate crawling insect that had been half-squashed. He understood human shame, especially in the middle of the night on the concrete floor of the Gas-n-Sip, where he went through boxes of wet wipes, fumbling them out one-handed, wrapping them in plastic bags from behind the counter and throwing them in the dumpster out back. They would pollute the oceans, possibly choke dolphins.

Naomi had told him he’d come off the assembly line with a crack in his chassis. Because of Dean, Cas had occasionally widened that crack until he shattered. Now there was no more chassis, nothing to crack except bones. Flesh oozed its juices, thumping its thick sticky blood, leaking saliva, mucus, semen, sweat, urine and excrement. And ear wax, of course. What had been his vessel was now simply his body, to have and to hold till death did they part. A body with muscles that would degrade without proper maintenance. Perhaps his hairline would recede, wrinkles gathering around his eyes. Soon he might have a paunch and a bad back. He might go bald. In a few years he might be unrecognisable to Dean, who would still be lean and lithe, smelling of leather and gun oil. Or Dean would die and his soul would go to heaven, where it would be joined by those of humans he’d loved.

Cas might one day own a little house in Rexford. He might marry a woman, or a man if the American humans finally realised this was acceptable; he’d heard them discussing it intensely on news broadcasts.

_Us, not them_. He had to remind himself several times a day. Eventually it would sink in, he’d get it through his thick skull, and he would use expressions like that without having to draw them from his memory-bank of everything Dean had ever said to him.

He’d worried those memories might fade, but even with the alteration of his conscious mind from celestial wavelength to pulsing squishy neurons, they remained accurate, brighter and clearer than any others. Perhaps because Cas had replayed them to himself many hundreds of times, the way humans transformed scenes from their favourite television shows and films into gifs, looping a few seconds of the characters’ expressions, reading desire into every eyelash flutter, every swallow, every stare that lasted more than a second. The memories were just as clear in analogue as digital; somehow, they were warmer.

_Us, not them. Us, not them_. He was a human, and did not deserve to be an angel.

He would have to make a life for himself without Dean and Sam. He would have to find some kind of dignity and meaning, the way many humans did, or he would die. He’d told Ephraim that he wanted to live, and this was true, but the thought of dying still brought a troubling comfort, a relief, accompanied by unease: did he have a soul? Could he ever return to heaven, in any form? Would he be swallowed by the Empty even as a human? Questions like this had also been disrupting his sleep, sometimes with nightmares. The fatigue bruised him around the eyes, made him irritable.

‘You been sleeping much?’ Dean asked Cas, in that dirty motel room, as he secured the bandage. ‘Still getting used to it, huh?’

They were as physically close as they had ever been, except while embracing. Cas called to mind his favourite embrace. _Damn, it’s good to see you_. The one in Purgatory. _Nice peach fuzz_.

The wrist bandage was adequate. Cas pushed Dean’s hands away firmly but gently, or so he hoped. The idea that Dean might never touch him again was almost as painful as Dean touching him, but in a couple of years the sting would fade. Angels had a tendency to see everything, all at once in sharp focus, while human minds were more flexible; they were skilled at dissociation and compartmentalisation. Dean had taught him about that.

_Us, not them_.

Tilting his head, Cas gazed up into Dean’s eyes. ‘I have trouble sleeping, like many humans. Yourself included.’

Dean still hadn’t stepped back. There was a six-pack of Texan Star beer in the tiny white fridge, which buzzed like a blowfly, and Cas expected Dean to fetch one, perhaps offer up another because Cas could now appreciate it, but Dean didn’t. He swallowed. His neck and ears had turned red, as though he was having an allergic reaction. What if he went into anaphylactic shock? Cas would have to call an ambulance. It was strange how one small biting insult from Dean, _baby in a trenchcoat_ , materialised in Cas’s mind at least once a day, just as ‘Burning for You’ sometimes played in his head late at night with no relief. Despite the human talent for compartmentalisation, mosquitos of information broke through.

Not only about Dean, but the angels too. Cas had brought them so much pain. He had made so many mistakes.

Dean hung his head and pressed the palm of his right hand to the back of his neck, one of his characteristic nervous gestures. Why was he nervous? Perhaps he was about to leave, drive home. He did not step away. ‘Listen, buddy. Back at the bunker, I’m sorry I told you to go. I know it’s been hard on you. But you’re, um, you’re …’ He hesitated and tried to smile, but then he shook his head and mumbled, ‘You know I didn’t want to kick you out, right?’

That prompted an odd pain in Cas’s chest. Either it was some love-related chemical response, or he had heartburn. He was still having trouble parsing these signals from his body. He hadn’t remembered that mammalian intestines contained neural matter, but recently a podcast had enlightened him. He’d been planning to download an ebook about gut health.

Then the mysterious pain in his chest turned into something that felt good, like eating Reese’s Pieces but better. Also confusing, as though he’d opened the plastic wrapper of a urinal soap to find a peanut butter cup inside.

‘No, Dean,’ he said. He was staring up at Dean’s eyes again, and Dean was staring down at his. Another moment to be stored in Cas’s memory-bank of intense eye contact. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Well, I didn’t, okay?’ Usually when Dean’s voice took on that defensive tone, when he was ‘acting like an asshole’ because he felt vulnerable, he needed space, he needed to move. But he remained where he was, standing between Cas’s spread thighs. His neck was completely red now, his face flushed, perhaps from guilt or embarrassment or shame. ‘I just …’ He raised his head a little and shook it. Clearly he’d made the decision not to divulge further information. He had the right to remain silent, under the laws of his land.

Someone knocked at the door. ‘The pizza,’ Dean muttered.

Cas didn’t pay attention to the purchase; he was staring at his distorted reflection in the blank TV screen. Just over a hundred years ago, the invention of the camera had taken him by surprise. He’d learned about it while inhabiting his previous vessel, a young woman with long brown hair that she wore in an elaborate style with a jaunty green hat perched on top. She had smelled of soap, starch and sweat, and had never been touched intimately by a man. One time recently she had made love with another woman, her close friend, but she did not like to think of this. In fact, she was so terrified of being sent to hell that the memory pulsed into Castiel’s frequency. Warm, wet skin, soft kisses all over, full white breasts, coral-pink nipples, freckles on pale cheeks, a tingling sensation that built to waves of orgasm—Castiel had experienced it but hadn’t really felt it.

That was one good thing he’d done as an Angel of the Lord: reassuring the misguided vessel about her desires. Informing her there was no divine punishment for consensual sexual activity of any kind.

Castiel had learned his lesson that time and been more careful with Jimmy and Claire, building a mental wall to protect them from sharing intimate thoughts. He couldn’t recall what he’d done when inhabiting previous vessels, probably because Naomi had obliterated all memory of them. A few weeks ago, it had finally occurred to Cas, in the small hours of a cold morning, as he shivered in his sleeping-bag, that he might have fallen in love with other humans before Dean. Their souls might be in heaven, longing for him; there could be hundreds of them. But he would not try to find out. Loving one human brought more than enough suffering.

He was still hoping to enjoy sex as a human. Love was not a requirement to stimulate arousal from consensual sexual activity, something he hadn’t experienced yet. His night with the reaper didn’t count. He hoped April’s soul had no memory of the experience, just as Jimmy’s soul was safe from him. He didn’t like to remember that night with the reaper, though thoughtlessly he’d tried to make light of it to Dean and Sam, speaking of it as a conquest. What would April think, if she’d heard him say that? It weighed on him. But he still felt discomfort; he still wasn’t sure how to put words to what the reaper had done.

Over the years Dean had frequently tried to connect Cas with women, Nora being the latest example. Dean seemed oblivious to the fact that he was utterly indifferent to sexual orientation. Jimmy’s face was handsome, at least by current North American standards, and angels were not grotesque or repellent creatures—Cas presumed he could have attracted many sentient lifeforms. But he couldn’t imagine wanting anyone more than he wanted Dean, who identified as a straight man yet was sexually attracted to men as well as women. He’d had casual sex with men in early adulthood, though he’d never told any of his loved ones about this. He had just been ‘blowing off steam’, it was ‘any port in a storm’ back then, he’d ‘grown out of it’, sometimes he’d ‘needed the money for Sammy’, it was ‘messed up’. Cas wished he hadn’t seen into Dean’s mental compartments while rebuilding his body and mind, partly out of self-preservation but also because that had been non-consensual too.

The reaper had worn make-up, probably tested on animals, which had smeared all over Cas’s face until they both smelt like chemicals. April’s body had been nearly hairless, very smooth and without blemishes. He had enjoyed touching it, especially the breasts, and had thrilled at the endorphin high from ejaculating inside it. But even before he knew about the reaper, he would have preferred to be in his previous vessel reuniting with her friend, if they had both consented.

In April’s butter-yellow bathroom, scented with a cloying floral fragrance, Cas had met his eyes in the mirror and congratulated himself on not thinking about Dean during intercourse. In the next instant, Cas had latched the bathroom door. As he jerked himself off one-handed into April’s sink, his other hand braced on the porcelain, he thought of Dean so much that he bit the inside of his lip to keep from crying out, until his mouth filled with blood. A surprisingly salty taste, not very pleasant—he felt sorry for vampires.

Why hadn’t Castiel chosen a female vessel again this time? Dean would have called him by female pronouns, and perhaps he would have gone along with that. Cas could be Cassie, and he might have grown his hair long and silky, and worn a jaunty green hat. Human gender norms were frustratingly rigid considering they were so vague, arbitrary and ephemeral. Dean might have been with him, not Anna, in the back seat of the Impala. Of course, the women whom Dean and Sam knew—especially those comely women they knew in the biblical sense—tended to die, sometimes after betraying the brothers, or at least be discarded. Cas wasn’t sure which option was preferable: having sex with Dean then being cast eternally from the Impala, or living forever without Dean. At least the first option involved the possibility of reconnecting with him in heaven.

After thumping the pizza on the bed, Dean scratched the back of his neck again. He didn’t look happy but didn’t seem angry. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you hungry?’

Cas shook his head. He actually felt like he was on the brink of starvation, but judging by its smell the pizza surely tasted like burnt plastic.

Dean took off his jacket and shirt, and threw them over a chair. His thin black T-shirt clung to his biceps. When Castiel had raised him from hell, he’d clothed him in a T-shirt just like it. He had simply copied it from the one Dean had been buried in, its precise shape easily retrieved in his memories. Castiel didn’t have subconscious impulses, or concerns about fashion. He was a soldier, a warrior. The fact remained that as he’d watched Dean swagger up a dusty path to the abandoned gas station, bow-legged and sweaty in his tight blue jeans and tight black T-shirt, the Angel of the Lord, leader of his garrison, cold and hard and polished as a blade, had known lust. Not so much a crack in his chassis as a droplet of molten lava sliding across its surface, leaving a seam, the origins of a faultline.

In the gas station Dean had seen the magazine he favoured, _Busty Asian Beauties_ , and pulled it from the shelf with a flicker of sexual interest. That buzz of mammalian arousal, the vibrations it caused in the air around their bodies, had been well known to Castiel since their creation. So why had Dean’s struck him like a burst of atomic radiation? Perhaps because it followed from Castiel’s first experience of tenderness towards a human body and soul, the compassion that had rippled through his frequency as he’d healed Dean. But something else had happened too. A few minutes earlier, Castiel had observed Dean lift the hem of the T-shirt to expose his chest, which looked different now he was alive and flushed and sparkling with energy. Different in a way that reminded Castiel of his previous vessel touching her lover’s breasts. Then Dean pushed up his sleeve, revealing the handprint, reddened and sore, that Castiel for some reason had not been able to heal.

A reason that only now occurred to Cas: he’d wanted the mark to remain.

Was this that same T-shirt? It now made Cas think of Marlon Brando and James Dean and other actors he’d fantasised about, trying to replace Dean in his mind’s eye. Sometimes Cas could appreciate human gender norms.

When Dean moved to stand between his thighs again, Cas thought it must be to double-check the bandage, but Dean bent down and kissed him.

It was just a brush of lips on his.

Dean pulled back and turned away, and Cas couldn’t breathe.

Then he realised what had occurred: a hallucination. Humans experiencing severe sleep deprivation accompanied by mental health issues had a tendency to hallucinate.

As he tried to bring himself back to reality and sanity, he put his fingers to his lips and kept his eyes on Dean, who was facing away and had braced himself on the rickety counter against the opposite wall. His shoulders were high and tense. He said, his voice cracking, ‘Cas, man, help me out here.’

Cas stood up very slowly and walked over to Dean. Was this part of the hallucination? Had he fallen unconscious? Perhaps all of this was happening inside his head. The entire day could be a dream. Sometimes when Dean and Sam thought they were dreaming they said, ‘Pinch me.’ Or they pinched themselves on the arm, so Cas tried that. But he didn’t wake up in his sleeping-bag on the Gas-n-Sip’s concrete floor.

That left a couple of possibilities. Ephraim might have alerted the angels to Castiel’s presence here; they might be playing with his mind before they killed him. He might even have become a vessel, his consciousness contained in a fantasy scenario to keep him docile.

The pizza helped him see reason. He would never have imagined a pizza that smelt so bad, and no angel would have created it under any circumstances, even Lucifer.

‘Did you just kiss me?’ Cas asked, making sure. He was standing too close, breaking the strict personal-space rules that Dean had invoked early in their friendship.

When Dean turned around, his pupils were dilated and he was biting his lower lip. That look in his eyes—they might as well already have been naked in each other’s arms.

Before the reaper had non-consensual sex with Cas, she’d gone into April’s bathroom to ‘freshen up’. She obviously expected Cas to freshen up too, and so he had, using the wet wipes beside her sink. As he lay naked and cosy under April’s freshly laundered sheets, relieved not to be sleeping rough in the rain, the reaper placed approximately fifteen paraffin candles around the room; they were all shapes and sizes, and most of them smelled like a batch of freshly baked cookies Dean had once bought from a tiny bakery, called snickerdoodles. Except the scent of the candles was slightly off, as artificial scents always were, not quite realistic enough to be delicious.

In a Rexford motel room lit by a fluorescent wall lamp, Cas and Dean kissed, deep and wet, Dean tasting a little like strong stale coffee, familiar, not artificial, not a dream, not too rich or salty or sweet, not clean but not dirty. The black T-shirt was on the floor, Dean’s smooth bare chest under Cas’s hands, and his nipples, then the tattoo, finally beneath Cas’s tongue. There was no mention of freshening up; no words at all. Dean panted hot breaths into his hair, guiding him backward to the bed, his knees hitting the edge of the mattress. Then a _thud_ —the pizza knocked to the floor—and Cas’s white shirt was nearly off but caught on the bandage. Dean popped open the button on the cuff and gently pulled the sleeve over Cas’s wounded hand. He bent to kiss the bandage, making goosebumps break out above it, the tiny hairs standing to attention.

Dean’s body tensed up. He let go, pulled away and said, ‘Cas, you know, you don’t have to do this.’

Cas was staring at his lips and had trouble making sense of the question. ‘What?’

‘I mean, I thought about what happened. With April. You know, I was proud of you for finally getting some. Thought it was kinda funny, and stuff like that’s happened to me and Sammy too. Lots of times.’ He shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose, and his voice flattened. ‘But it wasn’t right, Cas. What they did to us. What she did to you.’

‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Cas, not wanting to discuss it further. He felt a twinge of nausea.

‘Well, you don’t have to do anything with me. I’ll give you this room as long as you need. And a credit card, food, whatever you want. You don’t have to …’ Dean’s eyes were wide, scared, as though Cas would reprimand him. ‘I’ve fucked this up.’

‘No, you haven’t,’ Cas said, understanding. ‘You’re asking if I give my enthusiastic consent—I read an article about it in the _New Yorker_.’

Dean’s hands fidgeted in his lap. Shirtless, he seemed smaller and younger, reminding Cas of when he was fresh out of hell, created anew from Castiel’s grace.

‘Yeah.’ Dean swallowed, gaze averted. ‘Something like that.’

This made Cas burn even hotter for him, for his uncertainty and sweetness. ‘I’m not doing this _for_ anything except that I want to. You’ve had my consent for years, Dean. Since I became human I’ve been thinking about you all the time, every night, and I just want to—’

Dean kissed him. But Dean’s hands were still knotted together, so Cas ran his fingers over them until they unfurled, and then Dean’s arms were around him again.

More kisses followed, greedy and punctuated with bites, to lips, necks, throats, ears. Cas tugged Dean’s hair, asking, ‘Yes?’ and hearing, ‘Yes, yeah, _Cas_ ,’ before he turned their bodies, not separating their mouths as he pushed Dean onto the bed, firm but not aggressive, holding him there, tasting him, pressing his hips down with both hands, the injury be damned. Dean grunted, and Cas couldn’t stop saying his name. They were fumbling with their pants, hands tangling as they tugged, finally getting them off, socks too, shoving them onto the floor.

In their damp cotton underwear, they rubbed together on top of the scratchy comforter, no finesse, pleasure burning up Cas’s spine. Cas knew this body so well, loved it so well, and he wanted to be inside it, come inside it, make Dean sweat and groan his name and come all over their skin, like Cas had imagined in April’s bathroom.

He said, ‘I want to fuck you,’ just blurted it out foolishly, and Dean froze.

Cas was about to apologise, but Dean shivered and kissed him on the mouth and said, ‘Yeah, fuck yeah,’ and they were sliding their underwear off, and they were bare, wet and burning hot against each other.

Dean squirmed and slid away from under Cas, and he lay there panting, still very hard, bereft and aching, until Dean got back on the bed, back under him, and shoved a small plastic vial into his hand. Dean spread his legs and held on to Cas’s shoulders, looking off to the side, brow furrowed, lips swollen, reddened patches all over his smooth white neck, his whole body shaking slightly. When Cas asked, ‘Condom?’ Dean shook his head, then raised a surprised eyebrow, his eyes dulled with something unpleasant, fear or jealousy or pain, and Cas shook his head. The reaper surely had been free of disease, as Cas had been.

He had observed this scenario in several pornographic videos he’d downloaded onto his phone at the Rexford library before they’d noticed his account activity and banned him from the premises, so he picked a favourite technique. It pleased him that all those hours of writhing around in his sleeping-bag covered in bodily fluids had been time well spent.

After Cas kissed slowly down Dean’s body, pausing again at the tattoo before he explored Dean’s trembling belly, he took his hot, reddened cock in his mouth, learning that Dean tasted better than he could have hoped, as he opened him with his lube-slicked fingers. Dean was using every curse word in his American-English lexicon, and alternated between calling Cas ‘fucker’ and ‘sweetheart’. Cas revelled in Dean’s body hair and sweat, his musk, the fact he didn’t smell like anything but himself, an animal. These were the pleasures of the flesh. Dean twisted his hips but kept them down against the mattress, never choking Cas, stroking his hair. Dean’s words broke into syllables until he was groaning and whining. Finally he managed to beg, ‘Please, _please_ ,’ and Cas moved up the bed while tugging him down until they met in the middle.

Cas was propped on his elbow over Dean. He looked into Dean’s pupil-blown eyes and then back to the task at hand, asking, ‘Yes?’

Dean said, voice nearly lost, ‘Yeah, c’mon, Cas. Do it.’

Cas took a few steadying breaths before he pushed in. Wet, tight, hot. He clenched his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut. Being an animal, a mammal, a dirty ape, a mud-monkey—it wasn’t so bad.

Dean’s hot damp mouth was pressed to his hot damp skin, making helpless noises from deep in his chest, then begging Cas to _move_.

Cas started slow. He had some semblance of control over himself. Less control than he would have possessed as an angel, but he could be tender with Dean, worshipful, loving. So he tried that for a few minutes. But when Dean tugged his hair and said, ‘Castiel, fuck me,’ his mind switched off, and everything was just heat and sweat and an overwhelming desperation to be deeper inside.

Then a loud _bang-bang-bang_ like machine-gun fire.

The headboard? There was nothing Cas could do about that.

He was back into it, their crucible, just their breaths, curse words, their names, their sweat. Gripping Dean’s soft bare hip with his good hand, bruising flesh down to the bone, still needing to be deeper, both of them panting as Cas stroked Dean’s cock between them. Dean’s gasps cut off before his body clenched around Cas, and their eyes met as Dean shuddered, groaned, ‘ _Cas_ ,’ bit his lip and made them slick over their bellies and thighs.

Cas’s brain flared white-hot, his body burning up. Dean murmured, ‘Now, Cas,’ moaning roughly as Cas obeyed. It didn’t feel like it had before; not any of the times before. The sensation was akin to flight but also to hunger. He could never get enough of this.

They were lying side by side, sprawled on their backs, sticky and dirty and panting like they’d been running for their lives and made a narrow escape. They were facing each other, their eyes locked. Soon they were both smiling. Dean’s was slightly mischievous, and Cas felt that way too. They had really gone and done it. They’d really gotten away with it.

Cas traced his hand down the side of Dean’s face and tried to say the words with his eyes, because saying them out loud would surely spook Dean, whose smile had softened, turning vulnerable, his eyes wet. He pressed the palm of his hand to Cas’s chest. ‘We, uh, shouldn’t fall asleep like this.’

Glancing down at the sticky mess, Cas gave a solemn nod. He pushed himself off the bed, his thighs aching, and fetched a threadbare but soft white towel, half soaked in warm water. No more wet wipes, he vowed. This part, when they were so bare to each other, so gentle and intimate with each other, was almost as good as the sex. When they were done, Cas balled up the filthy comforter with the towel and stuck them in the corner of the bathroom. The sheets were starchy but at least that meant they were clean.

Dean switched off the wall lamp and folded himself, warm and smooth and safe, against Cas’s chest, and Cas held him close.

He awoke with Dean tucked against his side, his arm tingling with pins and needles. He’d grown used to this debilitating sensation during his nights on the Gas-n-Sip floor, so he didn’t flinch. Dean was breathing steadily, but his body held a tension that meant he was awake. It was still dark out, neon-lit, but with a hint of dawn, some birdsong. A truck rattled by, then another, then another. Cas thought about counting trucks, not sheep.

‘You awake?’ Dean asked.

‘Yes.’

‘When you gotta get to work?’

Cas stiffened.

‘No, no, I don’t mean—’ Dean said, pulling away and sitting up against the headboard. Cas could only see the shadows of his expression; he couldn’t read his eyes, but they were wide. ‘Cas, it’s not like that. Come on, I spent a year in Purgatory doing everything to get you home. I prayed to you first thing when Sammy was dying, before I knew you were human. We searched friggin’ everywhere for you.’ He swallowed, fidgeting with the corner of the sheet. ‘And, what we just did … it’s not a one-time thing, not for me. I need you, Cas. That isn’t ever gonna change, you get me?’

‘I get you, Dean.’ Those words were good to hear, more than good, incredible, but of course they didn’t factor every variable into the equation. Cas sucked in a breath. ‘It’s Sam, isn’t it? Sam told you he doesn’t want me there, that I’m bad for—’

‘No!’ Dean pressed a hand over his eyes. ‘Fuck, no. Sammy wants you there too.’

‘Dean, I nearly killed you in that crypt, and that’s only the latest incident.’ Dean flinched, but Cas pressed on. ‘I can’t do anything to help you now. Sam has just recovered from a near-fatal illness, and I’m a danger to you. I’m useless and a liability. I would understand if he—’

‘Shut up, Cas.’ Dean was stroking a finger across Cas’s lips, a soft gesture that didn’t match his hard words. ‘Don’t ever say any of that again.’ Soft gestures, hard words—that was Dean all over. ‘I keep going through it in my head,’ he said, stroking Cas’s hair now, the top of his ear while the whole left side of his body tingled in response. ‘Is it too dangerous to be honest with you? What if that kills Sam, me just telling you what’s going on? But …’ Dean’s voice cracked. ‘I think I’ve been played, man. And maybe telling you everything—maybe that will help us figure out if I’ve screwed up.’

Cas finally understood. ‘You made a deal. With Crowley?’ Dean shook his head, and Cas took a guess. ‘Ezekiel.’

Dean nodded slowly. ‘Sammy was dying, you were human, what else was I supposed to do? Zeke said it was the only way, and I believed him.’ Dean removed his hand and stopped looking at Cas; he was facing the window, its venetian blinds still outlined in neon, no daylight yet. ‘You said I could trust him.’

‘Ezekiel is living in the bunker with you,’ Cas said dully, wondering if Dean had been watching action movies with Ezekiel and making snickerdoodles for him, before realisation hit. He sat up next to Dean, staring at the side of his face and wishing he could still read his mind. ‘Sam is Ezekiel’s vessel, and you haven’t told him.’

‘Zeke saved Sammy’s life, and he was the one who found you—well, he found that bitch reaper. He brought you back too. When she—when she hurt you.’ Dean was still looking away as his voice sharpened. ‘I walked into that room and saw you, so fucking helpless, all bloody, and you hadn’t _listened_ to me, damn it, I _said_ get your ass to the bunker. I told you to look out for yourself. She just slid that knife right into you like it was nothing. _Fuck_.’ He slammed his fist against the mattress. ‘I kept thinking you had to be okay, but you were gone, Cas. Right in front of me, forever. And Zeke healed you, just like that. Good as new. Without him I would’ve heard about a John Doe in the morgue, had to find you like that.’ Dean’s breath hitched. ‘So I had you back, I had Sam back, and Zeke seemed like a decent guy. I started thinking how it would be.’

‘Dean—’

‘One big happy family, with Kevin too. Story of my life, right? I even thought how we’d make up a room for you. And then I thought maybe you wouldn’t need your own room, we’d finally—’

‘Dean, _stop_. I understand. Sam’s life was at stake.’ Cas took his hand and squeezed it, but Dean shook his head, pulled his hand away.

‘Zeke told me you had to go, or he would. And his power was too low to finish healing Sammy up yet.’

‘Because he resurrected me.’

Dean scratches the back of his neck. ‘Yeah, maybe. Had a couple minutes to think it over, and I thought, not a big deal, Cas will know something’s up, he trusts me, I’ll give him a phone, some cash, he’s a million years old, doesn’t need a babysitter. It’ll only be a few days, a week tops.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘But here we are. Zeke’s been playing me, or he would’ve healed Sammy by now.’

‘Why would Ezekiel do that?’

‘Dunno, but come on, man, what else is happening here? Maybe I could’ve kept lying to myself, but I can’t lie to you, not anymore.’ Dean bent his head, as though in prayer. ‘God, I’m so _damn_ stupid.’ His voice had that harsh, self-scolding rasp, the one Cas believed his father had used like a belt.

‘You were stupid for the right reasons.’

‘Yeah, like that matters.’

‘It does,’ Cas insisted. ‘Sometimes that’s all that matters. Listen to me, Sam is strong. If he knew an angel was possessing him, he could fight. He could cast Ezekiel out.’ Dean’s breath caught, but he didn’t move. Cas would need to tread carefully. ‘Dean,’ he said, calm and steady, ‘I thought I was saving heaven. I got played too.’

‘So you’re saying we’re both a couple of dumbasses?’

‘I prefer the word “trusting”. Less dumb, less ass.’ He put his hand on Dean’s again.

Dean turned around, finally, with his mouth quirked. ‘What the hell am I supposed to do with a dork like you?’

With a slow smile, Cas said, ‘I’m sure you can think of something. I mean, if you’re not too tired.’

Dean’s eyes narrowed. ‘Sonofabitch,’ he whispered as he leaned over to kiss Cas, pressing him back into the pillows and taking him by the hips. When Dean climbed on top and shoved him into the bed, kissing and kissing him, sliding hard against him, Cas realised he was hard again too. He gasped into Dean’s mouth.

The intimacy of their conversation, the trust between them, the sense they were working in partnership, that Dean had forgiven Cas his trespasses, and that Cas forgave and understood Dean’s—all of that made Cas ache in a new way, bone-deep, right through his body. He slid his good hand over Dean’s ass, gripping it as the muscles flexed, as they rolled their hips together, Dean’s breath stuttering against his cheek.

‘Can we try it the other way this time?’ Cas murmured against Dean’s earlobe. ‘I want to feel you inside me.’

There was no response except that Dean’s body tensed and stopped moving, his breaths coming shorter and sharper into the pillow beside Cas’s ear. What did that mean? Was the suggestion somehow offensive?

Cas stroked his hands over Dean’s back, and he turned to whisper against his stubble-rough cheek, ‘I apologise, Dean, I didn’t mean to—’

‘Won’t that … hurt you?’ The pitch of Dean’s voice was strangely more soprano than contralto.

Was it acceptable to talk about this? Cas swallowed, not sure what else to say except the truth. ‘I, um, I think I’ll be alright. I’ve had a lot of recent practice. With myself, I mean.’

Dean froze, then his breath caught. ‘I just—just need a moment,’ he said, his voice tight and deep now, like he was in pain. ‘Wanna make this so good for you. Just … don’t talk. Just for now, till I say it’s okay. I need to—’ He shifted to hold himself above Cas, his jaw clenched, his mouth a thin line. ‘Damn it. You’re gonna kill me.’

Dean grabbed the lube from the bedside table, where Cas had somehow managed to set it down earlier—he had no memory of doing that. Dean was slicking his cock and his fingers, still breathing harshly. There was something frantic in his furrowed expression, his swift motions. Finally Cas understood: Dean wanted this so much he was coming apart, losing control in a way that embarrassed him. This realisation alone brought a moan from the bottom of Cas’s lungs through his parted, swollen-raw lips.

‘Fuck,’ Dean hissed, eyes squeezed shut. ‘I don’t know if I can …’

‘We don’t have to—’

Dean clamped his hand over Cas’s mouth. ‘I said, don’t talk.’ Dean’s palm was damp and rough and smelt like both of them, and Cas’s hips bucked involuntarily. He remembered being Castiel in the Green Room, slamming Dean against the wall, covering his mouth—the look in Dean’s eyes, like that of a trapped animal, pupils dilated, had it also been arousal? Castiel had been too distracted to notice. How long had Dean wanted this? Cas couldn’t stop the rhythm of his hips or the shivers that racked him, and he didn’t know if he could hold on either.

Dean’s thighs were shaking; surely he was still weakened from what they’d done earlier in the night. Still wet and sore deep inside. That thought nearly ruined Cas. He arched his back, struggling to rub his cock against Dean, who was holding himself away. It was so frustrating that Cas gave a pathetic whimper.

Pressing his forehead to Cas’s shoulder, Dean moaned and muttered, ‘Jesus, you’re so fucking beautiful.’ His whole body was trembling now, and he slumped down.

‘Why don’t we … we can try it like this?’ Cas said, taking Dean’s hips, tipping him to the side and onto his back.

‘Yeah, _yeah_ ,’ Dean grunted as Cas climbed on top, on his knees over Dean’s belly, his body tilted back so Dean could reach him. Then Dean’s strong, sure finger was pressing inside him, smooth and hard but careful, not rough. Cas’s body jerked, and Dean’s other hand clamped down on his hip, holding him steady, grounding him as his finger stroked inside, then two fingers, slightly uncomfortable, no hesitation, not much pleasure except at the intimacy, the knowledge this was Dean inside him, then—

‘Fuck!’ Cas jolted up and away from the sharpest pleasure he’d ever felt; he would have fallen if Dean hadn’t tugged him forward, his hand firm around his ass.

‘Sensitive, aren’t you, beautiful?’ Dean said, voice raw and uneven, like he’d finished half a bottle of whisky and just taken one more swig.

His fingers found that place again, the prostate, but this time Cas was ready for it, pushing down against it, pleasure so intense it almost hurt, his body clenching with every touch. His chin dropped to his chest as he made desperate, helpless, choked-off noises, then his spine was bending, his head tipped back. ‘Now,’ he commanded. ‘ _Now_ , Dean.’

Dean did not comply. Cas wiped his good hand across his sweaty face and stared down, narrowing his gaze. He expected a disobedient grin, but Dean’s eyes were closed, his breath shaky and shallow, as he kept fingering Cas open. His other hand was bruising Cas’s hip.

‘ _Dean_ ,’ Cas said, pressing his injured hand to Dean’s chest, the bandage scraping over the smooth skin, catching on a nipple.

Dean’s eyes cracked open. ‘Yeah,’ he said, and then there was that pie-eating smile, ‘guess I’d better—’ He licked his lips and withdrew his fingers, and Cas growled a protest. Dean was smirking. ‘Easy, tiger.’ He shifted higher on the bed.

Cas held Dean’s cock, finding the right angle and sinking onto it in increments, fighting to breathe. Dean’s body was rigid, pressed flat to the mattress, but his mouth was parted and wet, bruised and soft and inviting, so Cas put his fingers in it, and Dean’s hips shuddered as he sucked on them, as his hot tongue flickered under the knuckles. A tightening in Cas’s lower back told him to take them out or he would come.

‘Yeah, easy there, beautiful,’ Dean whispered. He stroked Cas’s thighs but mercifully not his cock, then reached up to stroke his clavicles, pressing a thumb to the sweat-slick hollow of his throat.

Only a few hours ago Cas had been going on a date with Nora, and Dean had said, _Undo your buttons_. Cas had only just started flicking the tiny plastic discs from the polycotton when Dean stopped him. _Th-that’s enough_. The stutter in Dean’s breath, the pull of his lips over his teeth, the tilt of his eyes. _Go get ’em, tiger_. Cas realised Dean had wanted him then, wanted this then.

Now Dean was all the way inside him, and the same thumb that had been raised at him as he’d brought a rose to Nora, that weapon-callused, work-hardened thumb, was tracing up the centre of his Adam’s apple, and he was saying Dean’s name, nothing but that, as he moved, Dean’s cock dragging and pushing much deeper than fingers could go.

Dean was almost silent, no profanity, just quiet grunts, his eyes wide open and pupil-black and mesmerised, almost crossed, the fur of his hairline slicked with perspiration. His thumb nudged the corner of Cas’s mouth; Cas bit down on it, tasting bitter salt. Something like panic seared up through his chest, and he came untouched, all over them both.

Dean gasped like he did when slapped across the face, the humanity sliding from his expression as he gripped Cas’s waist and shuddered, teeth bared, filling Cas with come until it dripped out, and Cas was clenching because he wanted to keep it inside him, not wanting to be separate again.

With a blissed-out smile, Dean went quiet and still, breathing deep and even. Then he was kissing Cas’s chest, his shoulders, clinging to him.

Cas murmured into the sweat-ruined velvet of his hair, ‘That was good, _so_ good, Dean. I always wanted that.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ Dean said, his voice a poorly repaired engine.

He gestured with his eyes that he would clean them up this time, and so their bodies parted. When Cas let out a sigh, Dean kissed him, hard and slick, then clambered off the bed to return with another towel. His face was shy, gentle, while he wiped them down hesitantly, staring at Cas as though his weak, sticky human body was a miracle.

Dean kissed the Enochian tattoo and traced its outline. As he gazed down at it, he said, ‘You, uh, told me you had nothing when you fell.’

If Cas hadn’t been so well fucked, so mellow on endorphins, the reminder would have hurt more than it did, a jab to his underbelly. ‘That was true at the time.’

‘Cas, you’ve always got something, okay? Sure, you don’t have all the—’ Dean gestured up and down Cas’s body ‘—the bells and whistles, but you’ve got yourself. The basic, you know, _you_.’

That somehow made it all better; how had Dean known exactly what to say? Cas grinned up at him. ‘But, Dean, you never got a bell for me.’

For some reason this was rewarded with slow, deep kisses until Dean said against his lips, ‘You really remember every dumb thing that comes out of my mouth, don’t you?’

‘Every smart thing, too. You’ve got a very smart mouth.’

Dean laughed, and they kept kissing, soft and lazy, until they fell asleep. 

The blare of Cas’s phone alarm woke them an hour or so later. Daylight was blazing through the venetians, the room lit in stark pale stripes.

‘Fuck, _fuck_ , sonofabitch,’ Dean grunted, grabbing at the phone, nearly knocking it to the floor before Cas plucked it from his grasp and switched it off. ‘Call in sick,’ Dean ordered. He sounded like an angry bear, but in the early morning light he looked like Cas’s wildest fantasy, his hair a mess with clumped gel and dried sweat, his skin glowing, little red marks all over his body.

Without breaking eye contact with Dean, Cas called Nora, thanked her profusely for the job and her friendship, and told her he was moving back home because an opportunity had come up. As he said that, still meeting Dean’s eyes, he ran a finger down the middle of Dean’s chest, eliciting a shiver. Nora expressed her disappointment to lose him, but wished him all the best. Cas said she was welcome to donate his sleeping-bag to a homeless shelter.

When Cas ended the call, Dean snorted a laugh. ‘An opportunity _came up_ , huh?’

‘Yes, an opportunity has arisen,’ said Cas, failing to sound nonchalant as he pressed himself back against Dean, ‘in several senses of that word. I’ll be spending the rest of my life with that opportunity, however I can.’

Dean smirked and ran a finger along Cas’s stubbled jaw, eyeing his mouth in a familiar way—he’d done it before, hundreds of times, while Cas had tried, carefully and firmly, to deny its significance. Now Cas could almost hear him thinking, _Peach fuzz_. ‘You’ve got one hell of an ego, buddy. I don’t remember proposing—’

Cas growled, ‘ _Dean_ ,’ and that shut him up. His eyes widened, his pupils darkened, and he flicked his tongue over his swollen lower lip. Cas knew what that meant now. He slid his fingers down Dean’s body and took him in hand. 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from ‘Burning for You’ by good old Blue Oyster Cult. 
> 
> Some dialogue is taken directly from the show and repurposed.
> 
> I really tried to take Cas’s injury into account. If you notice any errors with that, please let me know.
> 
> About April Kelly/the reaper: When I wrote this fic two years ago, I watched the relevant episodes, read all the meta I could find, and gave the reaper situation a lot of thought. I believe that she raped Cas, and I hope that comes across, although Dean and Cas don’t use this word because I don’t think they would. In the show, the incident is never discussed as being problematic, which I find appalling. I considered leaving it out, but that felt like glossing it over. My intention isn’t to resolve it, only to address it. It should never have happened, it should never have been treated as a joke or a sexual conquest, and it’s just one of many disturbing incidents in the show’s run.


End file.
